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Thursday, May 21, 2015

Besart Berisha is an Albanian footballer who
recently helped Melbourne victory win the Australian A League final. I didn’t
watch the final but the many stories of Barisha intrigued me.

The soccer mad youngster was born in Kosovo
during tough times and when he was seven his family fled to Germany where his
skill with the round ball was soon recognised. They spent some time a refugee
camp and it was there that the boy developed a determined will to succeed.

So why the intrigue, the interest?

The Kosovo War was fought in the late 1990s
between the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, made up of the republics of Serbia
and Montenegro, both Christian countries and the Kosovo Liberation Army, essentially
a Muslim force.

The Berisha’s fled for a better life, but
there was another time in the history of Kosovo-Albania when others fled to
Albania in particular seeking refuge from an even greater evil – the Nazi
version of Fascism.

During WWII Albania was first occupied by Italian
troops and, after the collapse of Mussolini, the German army.

And only in recent times, following another collapse, that of
the Iron Curtain and Enver Hoxha’s Albanian communist dictatorship, is the
world hearing the remarkable story of the Albanian Muslims who saved almost the
entire population of Jews in the region.

During the Nazi occupation, Muslims managed to not only save
Jews, but also the lives of deserters from both occupying armies, men who could
no longer obey orders from their screaming and insane leaders.

In an introduction to Besa,
Muslims who saved Jews in world War II Akbar Ahmed writes: “Norman [the
author] has shed light on the true nature of Islam as both a compassionate and
an Abrahamic religion. For these Albanian Muslims, saving Jews was a religious
calling because of the close bond between Jews and Muslims in Islam. By saving
Jews they were being good Muslims.”

Given what we read today, who would have thought such people
existed, but they did and they still do.

Norman H Gershman spent many years tracking down these
Albanian saints and he also took part in a documentary that follows the journey
of one man as he tracks down a family in Jerusalem so he can return three precious
Hebrew texts left behind during the war.

Rexhep Hoxha, a Muslim-Albanian toy shop owner, said by
returning the books he was following his father’s wishes: “He only wanted me to
finish what was left undone.”

These Albanians were not alone. Turkish ambassadors during
the war were ordered by the country’s president, Ismet Inonu, to issue visas to
Jews escaping Nazi death camps. Over 100,000 were issued in France and Germany
alone.

Jews in Albania were hidden in the mountains, in basements,
clothed as peasants, adopted as long lost cousins from other cities, it didn’t
matter, their lives had to be saved. It was all about Besa, the promse.

During the communist dictatorship of Enver Hoxha these
stories were never told, were hidden, banned and no contact was allowed between
the saved and their saviours, but now the stories have been released the world
can see another kind of Islam.